Economic Partnership Agreements in the EU's post-Lome trade regime: negotiations with West Africa. ZEI Discussion Paper C214, 2012

Trade is a key element of the development policy of the European Union (EU). As the most important trading partner of developing countries, the EU attempts to facilitate the participation of developing countries in global trade and contribute to economic growth through providing market access and financial assistance. For twenty-five years, the commitment of the EU was largely focused on its former colonies, more specifically in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP). The developing world, in terms of the EU’s trade policy, was therefore divided between ACP states with special provisions under the Lomé Conventions and all other developing countries. With the new millennium, this special relationship came to an end. Pressure from several member states1 and the World Trade Organization (WTO) led to an overhaul of the EU’s trade regime vis-à-vis developing countries and to the loss of the privileged position of ACP countries. The result of this overhaul is still pending. Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) – to be negotiated between the EU and several ACP regions – have only been realized in the Caribbean. This article will to examine the negotiations between the EU and West Africa and discuss the interests involved on the African side. Following the introduction, the second part of this article is dedicated to the Lomé Conventions with a focus on the change occurring from the third to the fourth revision in order to understand the current situation. The third part is going to take a look at the Cotonou agreement and the trade regime of the EU in general before turning to the negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and West Africa. The conclusion summarizes the main findings.

Changing trade patterns, unchanging European and global governance. Bruegel Working Paper 2014/02, February 2014

The world economy is going through its biggest transformation in a relatively short space time. There have been many explanations for this phenomenon but the unprecedented scale and pace of this change and, most crucially, its implications, still seems little understood. In turn, there has been little preparation for, or adjustment to, this changing world, though if the change continues at this pace, the effectiveness of many global institutions in their current form will be threatened. We highlight the dramatic degree of the shifts taking place in world GDP and trade and include fresh projections of what world trade patterns might look like in 2020, should the trends observed over the past decade to continue. We also show the resulting shift in trade relationships for many key countries. European member states tend to have quite different trading partners’ profiles, and this heterogeneity is quite likely to become more pronounced with time. This, in turn, suggests a significant challenge for the effective functioning of the euro area and weakens the original rationale of its creation. If our projections to 2020 are broadly right, then many established frameworks for the running of the world economy and its governance are not going to be fit for purpose, and will need to change. The global monetary system itself, and global organisations such as the IMF, G7, and G20 are going to have to adapt considerably if they want to remain legitimate representatives of the world order. The alternative is their relegation to irrelevance.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: A long hard road to multilateralism? EPC Commentary, 26 September 2014

The seventh round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations between the European Union and the United States will take place in Washington on 29 September. If concluded successfully, the TTIP would become the world’s largest free trade pact. The EU and the US account for nearly half of the world’s GDP and 30% of world trade with exchanges of goods and services worth around €723 billion a year and €1.8 billion a day. The Partnership, unprecedented in its scope and ambition, has generated great expectations which will be hard to meet in reality. It could however have a beneficial effect on trade multilateralism, provided that it is the result of an open negotiating process.

The European Commission and International Trade Negotiations: A Principal-Agent Approach. IES WORKING PAPER 2/2011

Starting from the concept of delegation of power in external trade policy, this paper aims to investigate the dynamics surrounding the European Union’s position in international trade negotiations. The analysis centres on the role of the European Commission (the agent), which by means of Treaty-based delegation and as mandated by the Council (the principal) acts as the sole trade negotiator in the international sphere on behalf of the European Union (EU). The broader negotiating process is thus conceptualised as a threelevel game, where the Commission holds an intermediary position between the European and international levels and also interacts with the Member States in the Council. After an insight into the European decision-making process for external trade, the paper further analyses the Commission’s role during the multilateral trade negotiations of the Doha Development Round. By applying the principal-agent theory to international trade negotiations in general, and subsequently to the controversial agricultural negotiations, this paper seeks to investigate some of the potential sources of autonomy that the Commission can draw upon while upholding an EU position at the international level, in addition to the “hardball” job of balancing the interests of the Member States with those of World Trade Organisation (WTO) partners. Along these lines, the paper finally aims to contribute to the literature concerning agency autonomy in EU external trade relations but also to provide a better understanding of inter-institutional relations within the EU as they may unfold in practice.

Tomorrow’s Silk Road: Assessing an EU-China Free Trade Agreement

This book provides an independent and in-depth contribution on the status of bilateral economic exchanges and persistent trade barriers between the European Union and China. A second objective is to encourage a frank and open dialogue, based on a scientific evaluation and without prejudice, of the possibility of a preferential trade agreement between the two sides. The study, commissioned by the Foreign Trade Association, was carried out by CEPS, in cooperation with the World Trade Institute (WTI) at the University of Bern. Jacques Pelkmans, CEPS Senior Research Fellow, served as overall study leader and Joseph Francois, Managing Director and Professor of Economics at the World Trade Institute, led the WTI team.

Towards a plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TISA): Challenges and prospects

This paper addresses a number of policy challenges arising from ongoing attempts to negotiate a plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), a recently launched plurilateral negotiating initiative coexisting uneasily alongside the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), particularly in the context of the ongoing Doha Development Agenda. While the TISA offers scope for imparting much needed forward movement to a policy area of central economy-wide and trade importance, such progress, even if realized within the narrower confines of a preferential trade agreement made possible under the GATS, poses a number of systemic risks to the multilateral order extending beyond services trade.

Reflections on the preferential liberalization of services trade

This paper takes stock of the forces that lie behind the recent rise of preferential agreements in services trade. Its initial focus is with a number of distinguishing features of services trade that set it apart from trade in goods and shapes trade liberalization and rule-making approaches in the services field. The paper then documents the nature, modal, and sectoral incidence of the trade and investment preferences spawned by preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in services. It does so with a view to addressing the question of how preferential the preferential treatment of services trade is. Finally, the paper addresses a number of considerations arising from attempts to multilateralize preferential access and rule-making in services trade.

Reflections on the Nature of Preferentialism in Services Trade

The Graduate Institute organized an academic workshop and roundtable on the occasion of EFTA's 50th Anniversary in Geneva under the chairmanship of H.E. Doris Leuthard, President of the Swiss Confederation. Pierre Sauve, Deputy Managing Director and Director of Studies, WTI and Co-leader, NCCR-Trade work programme on preferentialism and Anirudh Shingal, Senior Research Fellow, WTI and Co-leader, NCCR-Trade work programme on impact assessment of trade, co-authored a paper on the nature of preferentialism in services trade, which Anirudh presented at the workshop. The event was extremely well-attended by high profile dignitaries and academics including President Leuthard; Director General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy; trade ministers of Brazil and Finland; Jan Kubis, Executive Secretary of the UNECE and several current and former ambassadors. The academic workshop, moderated by Theresa Carpenter (Graduate Institute, Geneva), began in the morning with Prof. Victor Norman's (Norwegian School of Economics & Business Administration) presentation on the future of EFTA. Other presentations included those by Prof. Peter Egger (ETH Zurich) on the structural estimation of gravity models with market entry dynamics and by Prof. Richard Baldwin (Graduate Institute, Geneva) on 21st century regionalism. The high-profile Panel in the afternoon, moderated by Prof. Richard Baldwin, was led by President Leuthard who spoke on free trade agreements and the multilateral trading system in 2020. The keynote address at the Panel was delivered by Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati (Coulmbia University), who spoke on strengthening defences against protectionism and liberalizing trade.

The role of the G20 in WTO governance

Report by Professor Sungjoon Cho, Associate Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law (Chair), and Charlotte Sieber-Gasser, Doctoral Research Fellow, World Trade Institute, University of Bern, Session 27, WTO Public Forum 2010: The Forces Shapping World Trade, pp.29-33. In the course of the financial crisis, the global geography of power has shifted from G8 to G20. The latter, although representing roughly two thirds of global trade, consists of relatively a small number of global players and is consequently excluding many others from decision-making at the international stage. Nevertheless, the G20 has been successful in its reaction to the financial crisis and became therewith an important new player within the international community. When highlighting how the G20 might interfere with the WTO, the panel voiced concerns over the political legitimacy of the G20, given the limited number of members and the global impact of its decisions. It agreed on the impression that although the G20 intends to extend its debates from the financial sector to world economy in general, it has so far little achieved in this direction, particularly when it comes to moving the Doha agenda forward. It remains, thus, open how the G20 will evolve in the coming few years, and what mandates it will shed or adopt. So far, the G20 has complemented the WTO and international financial institutions in handling the financial crisis. Yet, even if there is little evidence pointing towards a less cooperative role in the future, the desirability of a G20 commitment in WTO trade negotiations has yet to be debated. The panel concluded by providing ideas on how the potential of the G20 might be used to serve global interests even better in the future. In their concluding remarks, the panellists agreed that it remains to be seen whether or not the G20 will further broaden its agenda. Given the ebbing away of the financial crisis there is even the question whether the G20 will remain an important international forum for financial collaboration, or whether it has already served its cause and will eventually disappear from the international stage. The Chair concluded the well attended and lively panel with voicing the hope that the two international bodies – the G20 and the WTO – will work in a positive way together in the future and face the challenges and opportunities in their collaboration to the benefit of everyone.

The United States and the politics of trade: the banana war with Europe and the Caribbean

This thesis examines the involvement of the United States in the decade-long trade dispute before the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the European Union's preferential banana regime. Washington's justification for bringing this case to the WTO comes from Section 301 of the U.S. trade act, which allows for disputes to be undertaken if U.S. "interests" are violated; however, this is the first case ever undertaken by the United States that does not directly threaten any American banana industry, nor affect any American jobs. Why, then, would the United States involve itself in this European-Caribbean-Latin American dispute? It is the contention of this thesis that the United States thrust itself headlong into this debate for two reasons: domestically, the United States Trade Representative came under pressure, via the White House and Congress, from Chiquita CEO Carl Lindner, who in the past decade donated more than $7.1 million to American politicians to take the case to the WTO. Internationally, the United States used the case as an opportunity to assert its power over Europe, with the Eastern Caribbean islands being caught in the economic crossfire. According to existing literature, in undertaking this case, the United States did as any nation would: it operated within both domestic and international levels, satisfying at each level key interests, with the overall goal of maintaining the nation's best interests.

Global Trade Governance and ASEAN: Studies of Trade-Related Aspects of Labor, Environment and Culture in Southeast Asia

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Tomorrow’s Silk Road: Assessing an EU-China Free Trade Agreement

The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) is an independent policy research institute in Brussels. Its mission is to produce sound policy research leading to constructive solutions to the challenges facing Europe. The views expressed in this book are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed to CEPS or any other institution with which they are associated or to the European Union. This book, commissioned by the Foreign Trade Association, aims to provide an independent and in-depth contribution on the status of bilateral economic exchanges and persistent trade barriers between the European Union and China. A second objective is to encourage a frank and open dialogue, based on a scientific evaluation and without prejudice, of the possibility of a preferential trade agreement between the two sides. The study was carried out by CEPS, in cooperation with the World Trade Institute at the University of Bern.

The Financial Services Regime in International Economic Law: on the Difficult Relationship between Trade Liberalization and Prudential Measures

The PhD thesis analyses the financial services regime in international economic law from the perspective of the difficult relationship between trade liberalisation and prudential measures. Financial stability plays a fundamental role for the well-being and well-functioning of the global economy, but, it is at the same time a complex sector to regulate and supervise and, especially after the 2007-08 economic crisis, States have tightened up their regulation of financial services, introducing more severe and protectionist prudential measures. However, in an increasingly interconnected global economy, the harmonization of prudential regulation at the international level is an essential step to guarantee integrity, fairness and stability of financial markets and trade. The research analyses the tools at disposition to achieve this aim, the related problematic issues and the perspectives and possible solutions for the future, starting from the World Trade Organization (WTO) legal framework and its General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), devoted to discipline trade in services among the WTO Members. Then, the research moves to a second legal instrument, the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), which has witnessed a remarkable spread in the last decades. Finally, the research addresses the international standards, developed by supranational entities and implemented by an increasing number of States, as they offer rules and guidelines adequate to update the international financial scenario. Nevertheless, the international standards alone cannot be the solution because, first, they are not mandatory, as governments decide voluntarily to apply them and, second, their decision-making process do not respect the requirements of transparency and representative membership. In light of this analysis, the thesis aims at providing an answer to its research question: how to give more certainty to States and economic operators in the planning of the domestic disciplines and business activities in order to provide a sound and stable international financial system.